


blue

by manzana



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, POOR BOY HAS IT BAD, Underage Drinking, also rin gets a liiiiiiittle tipsy at the end so like, no relationship this is all one-sided(?) pining, sousuke is a low-key perv for most of this but he's also like self-aware and somewhat ashamed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manzana/pseuds/manzana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>rin is going out and sousuke, to the best of his abilities, helps him pick out an outfit. this does not bode well for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blue

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted from [my tumblr](http://princessbubblgum.tumblr.com/post/105633740604) !! reblogs & comments are lovely and i really appreciate them :')

"What do you think of this one?" Rin asks, hands on his hips as he pivots in front of the long mirror hanging from the back of his dorm room door. He turns his back to the glass, craning his neck around and trying to survey the way his pants cling to his backside. 

 

As with every other time he had been asked this for the past forty-five minutes, Sousuke, eyes shut and head nestled against his folded arms and Rin's pillows, murmurs a listless, "mm, s'fine."

 

"You're not even looking!" Rin snaps, stomping his foot. 

 

"What difference does it make," Sousuke hums drowsily. "You're going to change out of it anyway."

 

Rin says nothing to this -- Sousuke was right, after all. In the amount of time it had taken him to respond, Rin had already deemed the pants unsatisfactory and the shirt unsightly, and was mentally scouring the remainder of his wardrobe for replacements. Still, Sousuke didn't need to be an ass about it. 

 

Rin takes care to flick him on the forehead before returning to their shared closet. Sousuke grins.

 

Most of his clothes have already been shuffled around from being freshly worn and returned within the last hour, Rin finds. Standing before the open door, eyes scanning for what he originally sought, his gaze finally lands on the corner of the closet, where Sousuke's small collection of clothes are located at the very end of the metal rod holding their hangers. 

 

"Shared" was a very loosely used term to describe the closet, especially when Rin's clothes dominated more than half of it. Sousuke had three button-up shirts and two jackets hanging at the end, and it was only after insistence on Rin's part that they had made it in there in the first place. If Sousuke had his way, Rin could have just had the whole closet to himself while those extra shirts and jackets got stuffed into one of the two drawers he occupied in his four-drawer dresser, but Rin was not having any of that. 

 

Rin hums to himself, then grabs the blue one of the three shirts. 

 

"Not sure why you'd want my opinion anyway," Sousuke continues, hearing the rustle of clothes as Rin begins peeling off what he's wearing. "'You dress like an old man.' Isn't that your favorite thing to tell me?"

 

"Even you have some basic notion of what does and doesn't look decent, I'm sure," Rin mumbles. He pulls a white v-neck over his head before slipping his arms through Sousuke's shirt. "I don't want to go out in public looking like a slob. It's the best friend's job to help make sure that doesn't happen. It's simple enough, Sousuke."

 

"Not what I signed up for when your seven-year-old self harassed me enough to finally come outside and play with you," Sousuke yawns. "Besides, you always look nice. Too nice. Perfect, even. You could go out in a trash bag and start a trend before the week is through." He pauses for a beat, reflecting on what he just said, and, just to avoid how potentially obvious he was being, he quickly adds, "pretty sure you're more obnoxiously aware of that than anyone." 

 

Rin sighs in a way that Sousuke can hear his smile -- which, fortunately for Sousuke, meant the lavish compliments had distracted enough from the fact that Sousuke was complimenting him at all -- and he replies, "True. I could even make these old man shirts look somewhat presentable."

 

His words are followed by the sound of him removing his pants, of the material sliding down his legs and pooling at the floor. 

 

Sousuke's eyelids twitch in his temptation to look. He could, he supposed, if he really wanted to. He'd seen Rin naked before, much more naked than he currently was a few feet away from him, and this context was considerably more innocent than most occasions. Sousuke even had a viable excuse right now, what with how many times Rin had demanded he actually look at him and give a proper opinion of his outfit. Give him what he wants, so to speak; he never specified when Sousuke should be looking. But to try and nap through this mini-fashion show to only now try and steal a glimpse at those naked legs for less than innocent intentions seemed wrong enough to him to keep his eyes closed. It was all in intent, after all. 

 

Rin zips up the black skinny jeans he'd swapped out his cargo pants for, then examines himself in the mirror one more time. He looks…cute, he thinks, although he's not sure how much of that he owes to the outfit and not to his natural appearance. A second assessment convinces him to try adding accessories and see if that makes a difference. As he goes to grab a beanie from a hook in the closet and a necklace from another, he pauses at the last second and also pulls out a large jacket with a fuzzy hood.

 

"Better," he murmurs to himself as he tossed the necklace across his neck. He tugs the beanie over his hair, stares at himself, then tears it off. He lets out a disgruntled exhale, then turns to Sousuke. "Hat or no hat?"

 

"Hat."

 

"You're not _looking_ again!" 

 

"I don't need to look to know you look good in a beanie." 

 

 _Fuck, Sousuke, control yourself._

 

" -- I can take the hint from the fact that you own, like, fifteen of them." 

 

Nice save? Maybe? He still had his eyes closed so he wouldn't know if Rin had reacted to his words, but there's no verbal acknowledgement to the random compliment, so Sousuke breathes out a mental sigh of relief. 

 

Rin grumbles to himself, but tugs the beanie back on, adjusting it just so that it clings casually to the back of his head. He grabs the jacket from where he'd slung it over the frame of the bunk bed and shrugs it on as well, doing a quick spin in front of the mirror before making a satisfied noise. 

 

"Alright, I'll see you later," he says finally. Sousuke hears the sound of him cross the room and collect his phone and room key from his desk.

 

"Not gonna ask for my opinion one last time? I don't know if I've fulfilled my best friend duties thoroughly enough for the evening."

 

"I look great. I don't need you."

 

"I'm sure." Sousuke opens his eyes anyway, surprised to find that Rin is a lot closer to him than he'd realized. When he'd closed the distance between his desk and the bed he's not sure, but at this distance, Sousuke can see a tiny sliver of skin where his cotton shirt is riding up against tummy. Sousuke wants to fix this, wants to tug it down -- would that be too forward? No, they're _best friends_ , Rin said this was part of the job -- so he does, and he can't help the way his fingers ghost the surface of his skin, the way they brush ever so briefly at the material of his jeans when he draws his hand back. 

 

Apparently this isn't weird because Rin doesn't react to this, only continues to stare down at him expectantly, waiting for Sousuke to assess the rest of him. So Sousuke doesn't let the moment dwell for two long, allows his eyes to continue roaming the rest of Rin's body, until -- 

 

"Is that my shirt," Sousuke finally asks. 

 

"I'll wash it before I give it back." A pause. "It looks good on me." 

 

"Take off the jacket," Sousuke says, trying to keep his voice steady. 

 

Frowning, Rin does as he says, depositing the garment on the back of his desk chair. The movement causes him to bend forward just enough so that his jeans strain slightly where they hug him and Sousuke has to swallow hard -- his ass looks _so good_ it is unreal. It is irresponsible. Sousuke wouldn't have noticed this with the jacket on, not with how long it was. Rin was going to deny the world of this? How cruel of him.

 

Rin turns again to present himself to Sousuke. The shirt is a bit large on him, Sousuke sees, all the more so when he wears it open like he does. Sousuke likes this too much. He wants Rin to just keep the shirt. So much of him belonged to Rin anyway, he figured; a shirt was so inconsequential in comparison. 

 

"Yeah," Sousuke breathes, hoping he doesn't sound as starved as he feels. "Looks good."

 

"Thanks for the approval," Rin says, grinning out the corner of his mouth. "Am I free to go?"

 

Sousuke spares him one last gaze raking up and down the length of his body before easing his eyes shut again. 

 

"Have fun." He relaxes back against Rin's pillows. "How many Snapchats should I expect tonight?" 

 

"Keep your phone close, let's just say that." As Rin reaches out for his jacket, Sousuke suddenly speaks again.

 

"Not that one."

 

Rin pauses, his hand gripping the material, and turns his head just slightly to look back at him. 

 

"Hm?"

 

"Not that jacket."

 

"What's wrong with it," Rin snaps. Sousuke can hear the pout in his tone -- that pout is his favorite thing on this good earth and there's nothing in this world that could keep him from gazing at it when the opportunity presented itself. It's enough for him to open at least one eye again, and he's not disappointed by the sight.

 

"You have a leather jacket, right?" 

 

When had he memorized his wardrobe? This was getting ridiculous. 

 

"Try that one."

 

Rin does. It's better, Sousuke thinks. Much better. Shorter, most importantly. Rin turns to examine himself in the mirror, and Sousuke allots himself ten seconds to stare straight at his backside before forcing his eyes closed again. 

 

"Good eye," Rin murmurs, turning to the side as he continues to survey himself in the mirror. He casts a grin over his shoulder. "Look at you Sousuke. Not completely useless." 

 

"I pay attention sometimes." 

 

Rin leaves shortly thereafter. Sousuke tries to nap, but it's hard when he can't shake the thought of Rin wearing his shirt. A warm feeling stirs inside him, creeping across every inch of his skin. 

 

The shirt likely smells like him. Would it linger enough, he wonders, for Rin to sit idly by at dinner with his friends, tuck his face against the collar as he tries to hide a small laugh, and breath him in? This is ridiculous, so ridiculous, and Sousuke feels so guilty and dirty by the way his body reacts to this thought, but he entertains the idea all the same. 

 

Rin likes it, he imagines; only in his head would this possible, anyway, so why not run wild with it. So Rin likes it, likes the lingering scent of the shirt's owner, likes knowing his much larger, tauter body once filled out the material, the cloth stretching across his limbs and muscles, and Rin likes this so much he absentmindedly tugs at the material where it now clings to him, keeps his face buried in the collar right where it is. His friends are talking to him, talking around him, laughing and eating and completely unaware of how distracted Rin is right now. 

 

Rin is thinking about all of Sousuke's other clothes, how much bigger they are and how he might look in them too, how he might like to pull them on and wear them like sleeping clothes. He's probably going to do it when he gets home, step back into their dorm room and rifle through Sousuke's drawers without asking and just tug one on. He'll climb into his bottom bunk bed where Sousuke has yet to remove himself from and he'll curl up next to him and Sousuke will wake up to this, Rin small in his large shirt and with nothing between him and the smooth hairless skin of those legs he'd resisted earlier this evening and -- 

 

and Sousuke hates this. He feels terrible. He feels worse still when he buries his face against Rin's pillow and inches a tentative quivering hand under the waistband of his sweatpants and allows his imagination to run wild while his body gives into its urges in the worst place he could possibly do this. How guilty and awful he feels only makes everything that much more exciting, and he ends up finishing much too quickly, the image of that little sliver of Rin's tummy being the last thing to flash across his mind before his vision goes white. 

 

He lays there spent for a long while, his chest heaving and his breathing labored. shame and revulsion course through him as he comes down from his high, and it's enough to spur him to get up and change his briefs and his sweat pants. When he returns to the bunk, he tells himself to climb his ladder, to return to his own bed where he belongs, that in the event that he might touch himself again he might as well be up there and not defile his best friend's bed a second time. 

 

But he ignores this voice in his head. He falls back against Rin's bed, his body tired and his mind tired and his heart tired too and he eventually dozes off, not even taking care to shut off the light. 

 

He wakes up from his nap hours later to some commotion outside his window. He's weary enough with sleep to not care to investigate, but he does automatically dig under Rin's pillow to find his phone and check the time. The screen illuminates to reveal that it's 2 AM. Underneath this is the notification that he'd received seventeen Snapchats from Rin throughout the night, each increasingly more ridiculous and incoherent than the last. Nanase had even made a solo appearance in one, looking blank as ever while the bright lights of the karaoke room lit up the frame around him, captioning the photo with, "Rin's drunk and left his phone with me so uh hi." 

 

The last one from Rin -- captioned, "y rnt u relpyingggg 2 meeee sskkkAYY" plus three crying emoji -- is taken way too close to his face, enough for Sousuke to see the bright red inebriation-induced blush on his cheeks. He's pouting, but it's not quite the one Sousuke is most fond of. He likes this one too, though; Rin's trying to look both cute and demanding and it does well to convey the whine he might be voicing to accompany a face like this. He usually uses this face when he wants something from Sousuke, and it's enough to make Sousuke question how aware Rin is of Sousuke's feelings toward him; if he were so oblivious, how could he know how effective this tactic is on him? 

 

At the angle he holds the phone, Sousuke can clearly see he's shed his leather jacket. Likely he was warm, more likely he had reached the point of inebriation to start removing clothing. Sousuke's shirt seemed to be on the verge facing that fate as well, with the way half of it hung loosely off Rin's right shoulder. 

 

The sight of it sends a pool of warmth straight into Sousuke's gut, and Sousuke is soon joined by the memory of his activities from a few hours ago. He tries not to dwell too long on it -- thankfully Snapchat deletes the photo within a few seconds, although some awful part of him did consider taking a screenshot as the last few seconds winded down. 

 

Tapping through his phone to get out of the app, he notices he has a text as well, one from Rin's phone, and he opens it to read: 

 

_we're bringing drunky home. you better be awake -- HN_

 

It was new, within the last half hour. Sure enough, minutes later, he hears noises down the hallway outside, uneven footsteps and hushed voices. They get louder as they approach his door, and he can recognize them all. 

 

"Where's his key."

 

"Ah, I don't -- Rin, where's your key?" 

 

"Mmm, pocket."

 

"You have a lot of pockets, stupid. Which one."

 

"Haru, don't be mean, he had a lot to drink!"

 

Sousuke rolls his eyes before sliding off the bed and padding his way to the door. He opens it to find Tachibana and Nanase supporting Rin under his arms while they root through his jacket pockets. They glance up in surprise when Sousuke opens the door, quitting their search as Tachibana lets out a sigh of relief. 

 

"Oh, good, you're awake."

 

"Special delivery for you, Yamazaki," Nanase murmurs, releasing Rin. the boy wobbles where he stands, eyes struggling to focus on Sousuke in front of him. When he recognizes him, his eyes widen slightly, and he frowns.

 

"You."

 

"Me," Sousuke responds, raising an eyebrow.

 

"Why," Rin begins, then pauses to swallow. "Didn't you. Respond. To my snapchats." 

 

"This is all he has been talking about since we told him we were taking him back here," Tachibana explains with a small smile. 

 

"Sorry," Sousuke says, both to Rin and to the others.

 

"Don't say sorry to us. This is your problem now," Nanase says, gently nudging Rin forward by the back. As soft as his prodding is, it's enough for Rin to fall forward against Sousuke, and he clings there, nuzzling his face on his chest. 

 

"We gave him a lot of water!" Tachibana offers. "He had drank quite a bit of alcohol, but not so much to throw up or anything! He should be okay." 

 

"Thanks for bringing him back," Sousuke murmurs, gazing down at Rin. 

 

Nanase and Tachibana bid their goodbyes as Sousuke drags Rin into the room and closes the door after them. Rin is heavy against his chest and he sounds like he's dozing off, so Sousuke is left with no other choice than to gently ease him down onto his bed. He proceeds to remove his shoes, placing them neatly at the foot of Rin's desk where he normally keeps them. he removes his jacket, too, and the movement is enough to jostle Rin half awake again, his eyes blinking open. Sousuke wants to change him into sleeping clothes, but he takes advantage of the fact that he's awake now to try and talk. 

 

"Looks like somebody had fun," he says, cracking a small smile. 

 

"I sang -- " Rin slurs into his bedsheets " -- _five_ Taylor Swift songs." 

 

"Oh, cool, that's three more than you planned to," Sousuke responds, trying not to laugh. 

 

"Sousukeee," Rin whines. His body starts inching across the bed as he struggles to find his pillow and curl up around it. 

 

"Yes?"

 

Rin rolls onto his side, releasing his right arm from where it was trapped beneath him. His fingers are wiggling, his arms stretching as he reached out for him like a needy baby. 

 

"Come. I want you. Here. Come here."

 

Sousuke actually cant help but laugh at this, considering tucking this memory away and reminding Rin of it when he sobers up tomorrow morning. He spares him the embarrassment right now anyway, murmuring, "yes, I'm here, I'm right here," as he eases a knee onto the bed. This is much too slow for Rin apparently, because when Sousuke gets close enough for his fingers to reach, Rin tugs him forward forcefully until Sousuke falls clumsily onto the bed. 

 

It takes some maneuvering for both of them to get comfortable; Sousuke does most of the work as Rin keeps trying to cling onto him, but they eventually find themselves with Sousuke propped up against Rin's pillows and the wall by their bed, his legs stretched out and Rin resting on his arms atop them. He had to entangle Rin's arms from where they continuously tried to wrap around his torso if he wanted them both to be comfortable -- specifically himself, who did not think he could handle that much closeness without his body betraying him -- but he noticed too late that one of Rin's hands still stubbornly clung to a fistful of his sweater. 

 

Sousuke brushes hair off Rin's forehead as he dozes noisily against his arms, his breath tickling the material of Sousuke's clothed thigh.

 

"You wanna change, Rin? You're still wearing your nice clothes. And my shirt." 

 

Rin shakes his head. 

 

"You didn't throw up on it did you? On my shirt? 'cause I like that shirt." 

 

Rin shakes his head again, a little more furiously this time, a frown creasing between his eyebrows. His lips open slightly, enough for him to mumble, "I said I'd wash it." 

 

"I'm kidding," Sousuke says. "You can keep it if you want. It does look good on you." 

 

"Let's share it."

 

"Joint custody shirt," Sousuke says, nodding. "Alright. Who gets it when we move away from each other."

 

"No," Rin murmurs. "Stay with me. Stay with me and our shirt baby."

 

Sousuke laughs loudly, drawing his fingers through Rin's hair from the nape and dragging them out slowly until his twirls the ends around his digits. 

 

"It smells like you," Rin says after awhile, and Sousuke freezes, as if their inexplicable best friend telepathy might've been so strong that Rin had read his thoughts from earlier. "Gross."

 

" _You're_ gross, smelling my shirt." It felt wrong for him of all people to call anyone gross right now, least of all Rin, least of all for this reason, but this banter was too natural to him. "Is it gonna smell like alcohol now?" 

 

"I took it off when I was drinking," Rin continues. "I didnt want your smell to go away." 

 

"You said it was gross."

 

"I'm gross." Rin pauses. "I'm gross because I like it." 

 

Sousuke doesn't say anything, keeps playing with Rin's hair, stares down at him with a heavy gaze as if examining him and examining his words and trying to find truth in them.

 

"Don't tell me this later," Rin murmurs. "Don't tell me what I said. It's embarrassing." 

 

Sousuke laughs gently. "You embarrass yourself enough when you're sober. you definitely don't need this too."

 

"Promise me, Sousuke." And then Rin's hand, the one clinging to Sousuke, releases him as Rin holds it up. He's holding up his index finger, which Sousuke would think is strange if he didn't know Rin was drunk right now. Likely he intended this to be a pinky promise. Ah well. 

 

Sousuke removes his hand from Rin's hair, touches the tip of his index finger to the tip of Rin's. 

 

"Promise." 

 

Rin falls asleep -- actually asleep, with low laborious snores and his body rising and falling with the deep breathing -- a short time later to the continuous sensation of Sousuke running his his hands through his hair and massaging his scalp underneath. Sousuke wants to stay, he was on the verge of sleep himself, but he knows Rin might find it odd for the two of them to wake up together. Explaining it away with, "you were drunk and I was taking care of you" didn't seem sufficient enough and so, reluctantly, he gently lifts Rin off his body, slides out from underneath, and deposits him back down onto his pillow. Rin is so tuckered out that he barely seems to notice the movement. 

 

Sousuke drapes his blanket over him, tucking him in before plopping a water bottle down near his pillow. He turns off the light in the room, then climbs up to his top bunk. He listens to the sounds of Rin's snoring for awhile, to the occasional murmur and whimper, but mostly to rhythmic sound of his breathing. His hands tingle with the memory of Rin's hair, of the soft and silky way it felt sliding through his fingers, and, with an aggravated sigh, he turns onto his side that faces the wall, clamping his eyes shut and falling asleep like that. 

 

He wakes up not to his alarm -- he always slept through that -- but to Rin groaning loudly and angrily _because_ of his alarm. Normally Rin was awake before him so this didn't happen too often, but Sousuke was used to this happening enough that his hand automatically found his vibrating phone and stamped the alarm off. Rin settles beneath him, his noises quieting. 

 

Sousuke endures a few minutes of staring up at the ceiling, briefly struggling to remember where he was and what he was doing. Waking up was a trial every morning more so when he hadn't slept well the night before. He remembers, eventually, Rin returning late the night before, stumbling in inebriated and affectionate, and this is enough to stir him. He pushes himself up on his arms, blinking wearily and slow at the wall opposite him for another minute, before dragging himself to the bunk bed ladder and climbing down. Rin groans again -- likely the shaking of the bed was upsetting -- and so Sousuke climbs more gradually, gently placing his foot on each rung and letting the frame settle before taking his next step. 

 

When he reaches the bottom, he feet touch not the hardwood floor of their room, but one of Rin's socks. He blinks curiously down at it, only to see its companion not far away, and beyond that, the rest of Rin's clothes kicked off and abandoned in various piles all around the floor. 

 

 _Must've got warm in the night_ , Sousuke thinks to himself with a fond smile before finally looking at Rin's bed itself. He's wrapped all his blankets around himself, cocooning himself like a burrito, lying face-first into the pillow. A single naked leg pokes out from the blanket burrito and hangs over the side of the bed, and as Sousuke goes to pick up Rin's clothes off the floor, he can't help but drag two fingers teasingly along the back of Rin's calf, grinning delightedly when Rin makes a high-pitched disgruntled noise and tries to kick him before stealing the leg back inside his blankets.

 

Sousuke has gathered most of the clothes into his arms, the socks, his belt, his white shirt -- his hand hesitates over his own blue shirt, which he doesn't find on the floor, but instead finds slung over one of the bars of the bunk bed frame. He's surprisingly touched by this, that even in his stupor and fervor, Rin was courteous enough not to throw somebody else's shit on the floor. 

 

He folds all of Rin's clothes, placing them all on his desk. His shirt, however… that he tucks over his arm. 

 

"Rin," Sousuke says, keeping his voice soft and gentle so as to not upset him. He pauses, gives the other time to process the sound and respond. A minute later, Rin groans in acknowledgement, and Sousuke continues, "how do you feel?"

 

Another beat of silence, and then, groggy and scratchy and muffled by his pillow, Rin's voice sharply responds, "how do you _think_ , asshole?" 

 

Sousuke laughs, then crosses the distance back to the bed. He sweeps down into a crouch, folding his arms on Rin's mattress and balancing his chin there. "Do you want breakfast? Should I wait for you?"

 

This time Rin doesn't respond, even after Sousuke waits patiently for a long while. When no sound comes out, Sousuke reaches out a finger and wiggles it right against the back of Rin's neck. 

 

"Riiin." 

 

The sensation is enough to have Rin thrash his head violently back and forth, growling low in his throat, so annoyed that he says the words in English, " _go away_." 

 

"Alright," Sousuke says, chuckling. He stands back up, taking care to ruffle Rin's hair, much to the other's loud angry protest, then steps back. "I'll bring you something, then." Just as he's about to turn, he pauses, thinks about it, then bends over, bracing himself with one hand on the bed as he presses his mouth to Rin's hair. He still smells like alcohol, Sousuke thinks, but it doesn't completely mask the smell of his shampoo or his soap and Sousuke is glad for that. "Feel better, Sleeping Beauty," Sousuke murmurs against Rin's hair, before finally standing up and turning to leave.

 

He spends a long half hour in the shower, most of it spent standing in the warm water and attempting a short nap. He changes into a pair of dark jeans, when he's done, into a gray shirt as well, and finally, he tugs on his now wrinkled and worn blue button-up shirt.

 

Rin was telling the truth, at least. He had taken it off while he was drinking, enough at least that there was no lingering smell of alcohol. 

 

It did smell like Rin, though. mingled in with Sousuke's own scent was Rin's shampoo and his soap and also that unique scent that followed him and was imbedded in his pillows and sheets and everything he owned. 

 

Sousuke walks to the dining commons feeling warm all over.


End file.
